The Glass Village

“The only one there,” said Prue Plummer triumphantly.

“Was he?” cried Johnny. “Then who switched those two paintings? That proves someone else was there, doesn’t it? Why in God’s name would Kowalczyk do a thing like that? Don’t you see what happened? We know Kowalczyk split that wood and left it in the lean-to — we know that because Aunt Fanny painted it. We also know that the wood wasn’t there when Burney Hackett found the body. So somebody took the wood away — took it away for the same reason that the paintings were switched: to make Kowalczyk out a liar! And if Kowalczyk could be made to look like a liar on a little thing like did he split wood or didn’t he, then who’d believe him on a big thing like did he kill Aunt Fanny and him saying no? Kowalczyk’s been framed, my fellow Americans!”

“By who?” said a quiet voice.

“What?”

“By who, Mr. Shinn?” It was Hube Hemus.

“How should I know? Do I have to produce a killer for you before you’ll let an innocent man go?”

“You have to show us somebody could have been there,” said the First Selectman. “But you can’t. ’Cause nobody was. There ain’t a livin’ soul in this town hasn’t got an alibi, Mr. Shinn... if what ye’re drivin’ at is one of us. Even you outsiders got alibis. Maybe we ain’t sma’t enough to figger out all that stuff about the paintin’ — like you educated folks — but we’re sma’t enough to know this: Had to be somebody bring that poker down on Aunt Fanny’s poor old head, and the only one there was who could have is that tramp furriner, Mr. Shinn.”

“Take a vote!” snarled Mert Isbel again, making a fist.

Johnny turned to the wall.

Okay, brethren. I’m through.

“Neighbors!” It was Samuel Sheare’s voice. Johnny turned around, surprised. He had forgotten all about Samuel Sheare. “Neighbors, before we take a vote... As you would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise... Be you merciful, even as your Father is merciful. And judge not, and you shall not be judged; and condemn not, and you shall not be condemned; release, and you shall be released. Isn’t there one here for whom these words mean somethin’? Don’t you understand them? Don’t they touch you? Neighbors, will you pray with me?”

Now we can both be happy in the discharge of our duty as we saw it, Johnny thought. Reason and the mercy that comes from faith. We’ve tried them both, Reverend.

And we’re both in the wrong pew.

“Pray for his whoreson’s soul,” grated Mert Isbel. “Take a vote.”

“We take a vote,” nodded Hubert Hemus. “Peter?”

Peter Berry passed out new pencils and small pads of fresh white paper. The pencils had sharp, sharp points.

“Write your verdicts,” directed Hemus.

And for a few seconds there was nothing in the air of Fanny Adams’s bedroom but the whisper of pencils.

Then the First Selectman collected the papers.

When he came to Calvin Waters, he said, “Why, Calvin, you ain’t wrote nothin’.”

Laughing Waters looked up in an agony of intellectual effort. “How do ye write ‘guilty’?”

They stood ten to two for conviction.

Two hours later Johnny and Reverend Sheare were backed against a highboy before a three-quarter circle of angry men and women.

“Ye think to deadlock us?” rumbled old Isbel. “Ye think to balk the will of the majority? Vote guilty!”

“Are you threatenin’ me, Merton Isbel?” asked Samuel Sheare. “Are you so far gone in hatred and passion that you’d force me to cast my lot with yours?”

“We’ll stay here till the cows dry up,” rasped Orville Pangman. “And then some!”

“It’s a conspiracy, that’s what it is,” spat Rebecca Hemus. “Puttin’ a minister on a jury!”

“And an out-and-out stranger,” said Emily Berry. “Ought to run him out o’ town!”

“And me,” sighed Mr. Sheare.

They were shouting and waving their arms. All but Hube Hemus. Hemus leaned against the chintz-hung window, jaws grinding, eyes on Johnny.

“Excuse me,” said Johnny in a tired voice. “It’s very close in here, good people. I’d like to go over to that corner and sit down.”

“Vote guilty!”

“Make him stand!”

“Throw him out!”

“Let him,” said Hemus.

They made way.